A Conversation Part II
A Conversation Part II
(Note: The following is an honest passage of self-evaluation and personal argument more than anything else you may allege it to be. While I do not shirk away from the responsibility of its contents, it really has no intention of causing upheaval, morally or otherwise. It pains me to have to design such a note, because it signals a lack of freedom of creative expression.)
ROTW: I do not have a fondness for theory, and I do not rob you of anything. You ought to get that straight. I am simply trying to show you logic, my logic. Some people call it common sense; others would prefer to think of it as pragmatism. Adam Smith calls it ‘animal spirits’, you should know better. Whatever its name, you are seriously lacking in it. The slightest of provocation makes you cringe in disgust and angst. Do you think you are stable enough to handle an automobile in tight situations? Your problem solving ability still leaves much to be desired because you think too often with your heart and too little with your mind. Your mental faculties, however brilliant they may be, are undermined by your impulsiveness and rashness… Some things can get hard to comprehend some times. Material comforts, sensual pleasures, power and status do not always move in tandem with ethics and morality. There probably isn’t any compromise you can cling on to, hard as you may try.
Boy: Why do you introduce such alien terms like ethics and morality? I never had them nor have I ever regarded them very highly. Just as material comforts and such have no value to me, then ethics and morality are just as inconsequential. Socrates argued about it with Meno and came to no conclusion. Mills tried to stipulate how and when the law can ensure purposeful ethics. Self-righteous persons from our age now talk about valour and morality with such gusto that it makes me cringe. People can, and will go on talking about virtues. Let them have it their way. The thing is: who defines these virtues anyway…if they can be defined in the first place? Perhaps what morality means to me is totally different from what it means to you. Virtues cannot be defined universally, so please spare me from your incessant ramblings about them. Perhaps, just perhaps, the progression of humanity may be accelerated if mankind stopped harping on excessive morals and ethics. And you like logic so much? Well let me ask you a question rooted in simple logic. Why in high heavens above did they issue a license to me? Because I’ve demonstrated the appropriate levels of competency. The reasoning is gleaming with clarity, but you fail to see it. In this sense, you also fail miserably in your attempts to convince me about logic…especially your logic.
ROTW: Well, I really do not understand your tenacity in some areas. Why do you shun ethics and morals? Why do you bear so much hatred from the most trivial events? Why do you insist on carrying the disgust from the last chapter of your life into the next? Why do you despise authority, especially when it does not belong to you? What? Are you a social deviant displaying every possible form of anti-social behaviour? Be a man, face your flaws.
Boy: Stop asking me questions designed towards getting confessions which feed your ego! I do not shun morals and ethics. I am just saying that I should not be obliged to live my life under another person’s code of moral and ethical conduct unless I think it makes sense. And yes, I am disgusted with certain aspects of my life. Remember Romance of the Three Kingdoms? It consists of one hundred and twenty sub-chapters, and who is to say that the swearing of brotherhood at Peach Blossom Gardens in chapter one has no implications on the course of events which unfolds in the remaining hundred and nineteen chapters? If life really is a book, then it seems only fair to read each and every page with reference to what has already happened in the previous. It does not make sense to forget what you do not like out of mere convenience. I do not despise authority…I just think that if it is not used in the best interest, it will weigh down upon its subjected victims and slowly suffocate the living daylights out of them. I have happened to be at the receiving end before and I know how it feels… that, I have no wish to elaborate. Neither did I ever thought of gaining authority because it is laced with responsibility… which again, is a heavy burden. I never cared about being a social deviant or not, and I think I accept my short-comings with grace. You challenge my manhood…so tell me what makes a man? Tell me what makes a man in your eyes, and I’ll tell you how rotten I see him to be.
ROTW: Don’t try to get smart with me! And don’t try to get too argumentative because by default, I win every time. You can change yourself, but you probably won’t be able to change the rest of the world. Unless…unless you can establish something influential like Marx’s ‘Das Kapital’, or your own global fast-food chain which culturally colonises me, or something along those lines. Which reminds me: you haven’t read Marx’s infamous ideology of equality and homogeneity through state ownership, have you? Ha, of course not, because the book is banned.
Boy: Ha ha! Please don’t make it sound as if I harbour ambitions for world conquest and domination. Ssssh…lower your volume now, discussion on politics borders on dangers. The world was once divided between two extremes of Communism and Democracy which resulted in the Cold War. They claimed the latter was better, but I can’t really tell. Not when I know nothing in-depth about the former except how it was corrupt to the core, as depicted briefly in the text books. Not that I know anything about liberal Democracy as well. But anyway, it is not as if I have a lot to say about either. I never knew politics and I will not pit my life trying to explore its subtleties. My personal new-age ideology is individualism… if every human action is complicit to events happening around him; then does it not seem correct that if each and every one of us tried our best to better ourselves in whatever small way we can, we are ultimately bettering the world? I know that is not individualism per se, and could sound too far-fetched such that you will think it is my idealistic bantering once again. Whatever the case, I think if I set myself out towards this cause, then I will not be too affected by all the gossip, lies, backstabbing, and lack of character…and style of others.
ROTW: I don’t really see the link here… was that meant to be a deliberate poke at someone of a bygone year? That would be passé. But wait a minute, is the accuser always holy? Ask yourself if your character, or rather your lack of it, seems to be the key towards your less than happy life now. The answer is obvious. You smoke, you drink, you make merry without disgrace and you expect your mind to respect you. Come on, your repressed subconscious loathes you! Look at your previous post…what kind of nonsense are you writing? You make sexual puns of the lowest class, you dish out your perversity and lewdness in your attempt to personify an inanimate object into a surreal woman and then try to pass it all off as clever, cheeky entertainment. How distasteful can you get? In the same way you cannot see the soundness of my logic, I cannot see how anything else you say can be credible after the aptly titled ‘Fingering’. Each semester, you learn about the conflicts of feminine and masculine traditions through literary works, but paradoxically you have yet to have learnt respect for the fairer sex, much less equality between the genders. You mind is still too deeply embedded in chauvinistic values. Shame on you!
Boy: The autumn winds blow mercilessly, and crimson leaves scatter across the ground. The swift rapids flow heartlessly, and emerald ripples break towards the horizon…Oh you were saying? Ar… women, and gender…The whole lot of it again. You insist on bilingual proficiency and campaign so vigorously about speaking good mandarin. Let me put it to good use…my Chinese teachers from C High School will be so proud of me. Okay, look at the Chinese character ‘好’. Breaking it down, the left side gives us ‘woman’ and the right side gives us ‘son’. Putting it together means that a woman is virtuous if and only if she can gives birth to sons. Similarly, think about the character ‘安’. The top section gives us the strokes for ‘rooftop’, symbolic of home; while the bottom again leaves us with ‘woman’. Assembling it derives the word ‘safe’, which effectively means that safety, security and comfort essentially requires women to remain indoors…where they are relegated to domestic chores. Hey, but before you start burning your brassieres in protest of me being a male chauvinist pig, I hope you understand I beg to differ from these conservative views. Who really cares about childbirth when man and women fall head over heels in love? Who really cares about staying at home or not when love lingers all around? As for equality…as for equality…Well, I cannot find a better word for it but ‘different’. Women are necessarily different, not better or worse, not stronger or weaker, not smarter or clumsier, but just…different. Equality is not an issue when comparing two rather different things, is it? Some women keep insisting on being treated with a certain fairness, but when it comes to sharing the spoken and unspoken burdens unique to men, I’ve seen them shy away too quickly and too often. Mind you, I’m not trying to emphasize any male bonding here, I’m trying to highlight that some irreconcilable and quintessential differences cannot be overcome by compulsively seeking equality. But no doubt about it: women should receive all the respect and love that men should unconditionally give. Unfortunately, the actions and mentality of many women I’ve met fail to convince me that they deserve it.
ROTW: That is such a lot you say! But really, all you are saying in your roundabout fashion is that you do not really believe in gender equality. In any case, that does not form any justification as to why you should ogle at beautiful girls as if they are mouth-watering delights. Nor does that constitute a reasonable defense as to why you can objectify them. At this juncture, I ought to tell you that I see you as downright promiscuous and frivolous. You do not seem to address your perverse fantasies very well and they manifests in reality as your attraction to women who are physically enticing, especially those who are scantily clad. Why do you allow your desires to go unchecked? Can you really do the deed without feelings?
(Note: The following is an honest passage of self-evaluation and personal argument more than anything else you may allege it to be. While I do not shirk away from the responsibility of its contents, it really has no intention of causing upheaval, morally or otherwise. It pains me to have to design such a note, because it signals a lack of freedom of creative expression.)
ROTW: I do not have a fondness for theory, and I do not rob you of anything. You ought to get that straight. I am simply trying to show you logic, my logic. Some people call it common sense; others would prefer to think of it as pragmatism. Adam Smith calls it ‘animal spirits’, you should know better. Whatever its name, you are seriously lacking in it. The slightest of provocation makes you cringe in disgust and angst. Do you think you are stable enough to handle an automobile in tight situations? Your problem solving ability still leaves much to be desired because you think too often with your heart and too little with your mind. Your mental faculties, however brilliant they may be, are undermined by your impulsiveness and rashness… Some things can get hard to comprehend some times. Material comforts, sensual pleasures, power and status do not always move in tandem with ethics and morality. There probably isn’t any compromise you can cling on to, hard as you may try.
Boy: Why do you introduce such alien terms like ethics and morality? I never had them nor have I ever regarded them very highly. Just as material comforts and such have no value to me, then ethics and morality are just as inconsequential. Socrates argued about it with Meno and came to no conclusion. Mills tried to stipulate how and when the law can ensure purposeful ethics. Self-righteous persons from our age now talk about valour and morality with such gusto that it makes me cringe. People can, and will go on talking about virtues. Let them have it their way. The thing is: who defines these virtues anyway…if they can be defined in the first place? Perhaps what morality means to me is totally different from what it means to you. Virtues cannot be defined universally, so please spare me from your incessant ramblings about them. Perhaps, just perhaps, the progression of humanity may be accelerated if mankind stopped harping on excessive morals and ethics. And you like logic so much? Well let me ask you a question rooted in simple logic. Why in high heavens above did they issue a license to me? Because I’ve demonstrated the appropriate levels of competency. The reasoning is gleaming with clarity, but you fail to see it. In this sense, you also fail miserably in your attempts to convince me about logic…especially your logic.
ROTW: Well, I really do not understand your tenacity in some areas. Why do you shun ethics and morals? Why do you bear so much hatred from the most trivial events? Why do you insist on carrying the disgust from the last chapter of your life into the next? Why do you despise authority, especially when it does not belong to you? What? Are you a social deviant displaying every possible form of anti-social behaviour? Be a man, face your flaws.
Boy: Stop asking me questions designed towards getting confessions which feed your ego! I do not shun morals and ethics. I am just saying that I should not be obliged to live my life under another person’s code of moral and ethical conduct unless I think it makes sense. And yes, I am disgusted with certain aspects of my life. Remember Romance of the Three Kingdoms? It consists of one hundred and twenty sub-chapters, and who is to say that the swearing of brotherhood at Peach Blossom Gardens in chapter one has no implications on the course of events which unfolds in the remaining hundred and nineteen chapters? If life really is a book, then it seems only fair to read each and every page with reference to what has already happened in the previous. It does not make sense to forget what you do not like out of mere convenience. I do not despise authority…I just think that if it is not used in the best interest, it will weigh down upon its subjected victims and slowly suffocate the living daylights out of them. I have happened to be at the receiving end before and I know how it feels… that, I have no wish to elaborate. Neither did I ever thought of gaining authority because it is laced with responsibility… which again, is a heavy burden. I never cared about being a social deviant or not, and I think I accept my short-comings with grace. You challenge my manhood…so tell me what makes a man? Tell me what makes a man in your eyes, and I’ll tell you how rotten I see him to be.
ROTW: Don’t try to get smart with me! And don’t try to get too argumentative because by default, I win every time. You can change yourself, but you probably won’t be able to change the rest of the world. Unless…unless you can establish something influential like Marx’s ‘Das Kapital’, or your own global fast-food chain which culturally colonises me, or something along those lines. Which reminds me: you haven’t read Marx’s infamous ideology of equality and homogeneity through state ownership, have you? Ha, of course not, because the book is banned.
Boy: Ha ha! Please don’t make it sound as if I harbour ambitions for world conquest and domination. Ssssh…lower your volume now, discussion on politics borders on dangers. The world was once divided between two extremes of Communism and Democracy which resulted in the Cold War. They claimed the latter was better, but I can’t really tell. Not when I know nothing in-depth about the former except how it was corrupt to the core, as depicted briefly in the text books. Not that I know anything about liberal Democracy as well. But anyway, it is not as if I have a lot to say about either. I never knew politics and I will not pit my life trying to explore its subtleties. My personal new-age ideology is individualism… if every human action is complicit to events happening around him; then does it not seem correct that if each and every one of us tried our best to better ourselves in whatever small way we can, we are ultimately bettering the world? I know that is not individualism per se, and could sound too far-fetched such that you will think it is my idealistic bantering once again. Whatever the case, I think if I set myself out towards this cause, then I will not be too affected by all the gossip, lies, backstabbing, and lack of character…and style of others.
ROTW: I don’t really see the link here… was that meant to be a deliberate poke at someone of a bygone year? That would be passé. But wait a minute, is the accuser always holy? Ask yourself if your character, or rather your lack of it, seems to be the key towards your less than happy life now. The answer is obvious. You smoke, you drink, you make merry without disgrace and you expect your mind to respect you. Come on, your repressed subconscious loathes you! Look at your previous post…what kind of nonsense are you writing? You make sexual puns of the lowest class, you dish out your perversity and lewdness in your attempt to personify an inanimate object into a surreal woman and then try to pass it all off as clever, cheeky entertainment. How distasteful can you get? In the same way you cannot see the soundness of my logic, I cannot see how anything else you say can be credible after the aptly titled ‘Fingering’. Each semester, you learn about the conflicts of feminine and masculine traditions through literary works, but paradoxically you have yet to have learnt respect for the fairer sex, much less equality between the genders. You mind is still too deeply embedded in chauvinistic values. Shame on you!
Boy: The autumn winds blow mercilessly, and crimson leaves scatter across the ground. The swift rapids flow heartlessly, and emerald ripples break towards the horizon…Oh you were saying? Ar… women, and gender…The whole lot of it again. You insist on bilingual proficiency and campaign so vigorously about speaking good mandarin. Let me put it to good use…my Chinese teachers from C High School will be so proud of me. Okay, look at the Chinese character ‘好’. Breaking it down, the left side gives us ‘woman’ and the right side gives us ‘son’. Putting it together means that a woman is virtuous if and only if she can gives birth to sons. Similarly, think about the character ‘安’. The top section gives us the strokes for ‘rooftop’, symbolic of home; while the bottom again leaves us with ‘woman’. Assembling it derives the word ‘safe’, which effectively means that safety, security and comfort essentially requires women to remain indoors…where they are relegated to domestic chores. Hey, but before you start burning your brassieres in protest of me being a male chauvinist pig, I hope you understand I beg to differ from these conservative views. Who really cares about childbirth when man and women fall head over heels in love? Who really cares about staying at home or not when love lingers all around? As for equality…as for equality…Well, I cannot find a better word for it but ‘different’. Women are necessarily different, not better or worse, not stronger or weaker, not smarter or clumsier, but just…different. Equality is not an issue when comparing two rather different things, is it? Some women keep insisting on being treated with a certain fairness, but when it comes to sharing the spoken and unspoken burdens unique to men, I’ve seen them shy away too quickly and too often. Mind you, I’m not trying to emphasize any male bonding here, I’m trying to highlight that some irreconcilable and quintessential differences cannot be overcome by compulsively seeking equality. But no doubt about it: women should receive all the respect and love that men should unconditionally give. Unfortunately, the actions and mentality of many women I’ve met fail to convince me that they deserve it.
ROTW: That is such a lot you say! But really, all you are saying in your roundabout fashion is that you do not really believe in gender equality. In any case, that does not form any justification as to why you should ogle at beautiful girls as if they are mouth-watering delights. Nor does that constitute a reasonable defense as to why you can objectify them. At this juncture, I ought to tell you that I see you as downright promiscuous and frivolous. You do not seem to address your perverse fantasies very well and they manifests in reality as your attraction to women who are physically enticing, especially those who are scantily clad. Why do you allow your desires to go unchecked? Can you really do the deed without feelings?
posted by sUmmEr heAt at 10:48 AM
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